We Have the Power to Impact Our Future, and We’re Doing Something About It

Introducing the Norwegian Action Research and Industrial Democracy Polyphonic History

This website tells the history of action research and industrial democracy through the voices of the people who have helped shape action research and, in turn, have been influenced by it. As in any field, the histories of action research and industrial democracy are rich and full of surprises, with many unexpected encounters and serendipitous events along the way. We want to highlight this dynamic, non-linear journey. To do this, we’ll use the same methods at the heart of action research and industrial democracy to explore their intertwined histories and the social environments that influenced them. We want to highlight this vibrant complexity.

The story begins with Norway’s efforts to build its industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These efforts laid the groundwork for action research even before formal institutions and methodologies were in place. In the 1950s and 1960s, as conversations about workplace and industrial democracy gained momentum in Norway, forward-thinking companies sought ways to foster innovation, increase productivity, and support workers’ well-being. The institutions and programs that emerged from this period are centered on developing action research ideas and practices and an ongoing process of sustainable change.

The WRI Project 2026

March 5, 2026

This first-person retrospective reviews a major 1973–75 project at Norway’s Work Research Institute (WRI) on work-environment problems and workers’ protection, conducted amid the radicalization of Scandinavian labor movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s and growing public concern over poor working conditions. A team of five researchers studied 45 firms using interviews, constructed case material, and limited statistical data to analyze physical, psychological, and social work-environment problems alongside existing protective systems, while debating how explicitly critical the report should be. Using constructed case sketches, the study exposed contradictions between decent pay or social relations and dangerous or degrading conditions, while later critiquing its own underestimation of power and class conflict. Despite this, the project influenced Norway’s Work Environment Act—especially Paragraph 12 on psychosocial conditions and work design, whose principles endured even after its repeal. From 1977 to 1982, these ideas were disseminated through extensive training courses for safety representatives and union officials. The author ultimately regards the project as one of WRI’s most nationally significant and personally rewarding efforts, combining substantial influence with collaborative engagement despite internal political and methodological tensions.

The AFI Ship Program 2026

June 2, 2026

The AFI Shipping Program story presents a reflective, historically grounded account of the AFI Ship Program from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, situating it within the Norwegian Industrial Democracy Program and socio-technical action research tradition. It traces experiments with pilot ships, self-managed and decentralized ship operations, and expanded concepts of safety at sea that challenged “human error” explanations by emphasizing organizational, cultural, and educational factors, while also examining employee representation, changing qualification requirements, and reforms in maritime education. A central case study is “The Process” at Agder Maritime College, where AFI researchers engaged in action-oriented collaboration to reshape pedagogy, governance, and industry links, achieving notable innovations but also encountering tensions, fragmentation, and mixed outcomes amid adverse political and economic conditions such as out-flagging and sectoral restructuring. The AFI Ship Program contributed enduring ideas, networks, and learning practices to later regional development and action research initiatives, even as it acknowledges methodological limits in assessing causal impact and the constraints of the broader institutional context. It exemplifies an often-overlooked feature in historical reviews of the Norwegian Democracy Program – a commitment to transform both working life democracy and foundational institutions such as education and public life in a more participative direction.

 Get Involved

A key next step in building a genealogy of the field is to share experiences and explore the key social, cultural, and political dialogues that our work has inspired. 

As work researchers, we didn’t just carry out research projects; we helped enable, build, and shape a new Norwegian model of worker-management collaboration in the workplace, based on self-sustaining learning processes and participation. Until now, many scholars and practitioners have not been invited to contribute to an archive of memories from their involvement in the significant, inspiring, challenging, and at times frustrating pursuits of Action Research in Working Life. 

 We invite your stories about interesting projects, influential people and mentors, legacies, methodological and theoretical questions, important organizations, relevance to today’s issues, artificial intelligence, industrial democracy, New Public Management, giving voice to underrepresented groups, co-design of work processes, or simply being part of the community. Write your narrative with a clear time and place in 2–4 pages.  Please send them to Leslie at this address (leslie.schneid@gmail.com). We are also happy to arrange interviews if that works better for you.